


Always A Mother

by thepriexperience



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Female!Reader - Freeform, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, hurt!reader, mama tran - Freeform, momma tran - Freeform, tiger mama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 06:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4510524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepriexperience/pseuds/thepriexperience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Supernatural Confession:I want Mrs.Tran to be my mother ‘cause nobody messes with Tiger Momma.  </p><p>AU: In which Momma Tran decided to stay at the Men of Letters bunker and continue helping Sam and Dean. From Linda’s point-of-view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always A Mother

Even as a ghost, Kevin is opinionated, something Linda takes a strange sense of pride in; death itself couldn’t take her boy’s essence from him. However, she wouldn’t complain if he would shut up and keep his opinions to himself every once in awhile.

“Why are you staying with them, Mom?”

“Mom, seriously, can’t we just go home?”

“I was stuck here in life; now I’m stuck here in death.”

“Mom, why?”

And dead or not, her response to her son is always: “Because I said so.”

What Linda doesn’t tell her incorporeal son is she’s been a mother for so long, it just seems the natural course of action to stay here and be a mother to the Winchesters. It isn’t so much that the brothers need her, not the way Kevin did, but the  _appreciation_  they have for everything she does is something she can’t ignore. Especially Dean- The absolute delight in his green eyes whenever he has a homecooked meal and the way he pulls her into a tight hug against his chest, leaning into her like she’s the bigger of the two…Well, that’s not something she’ll forget any time soon. Plus, what does she have to go home to? An empty house, a job that seems laughable now that she knows what’s really going on in the world she lives in, a child’s headstone to purchase. None of these options are especially appealing to her. So. Here she is, in a secret society’s bunker in Kansas taking care of two grown men and spending time with her dead kid. This seems the right place for her.

“Mrs. Tran!” It’s Dean, his voice tense, and Linda immediately gets to her feet.

“Dean?”

“I could use your help.”

Linda rushes towards Dean’s voice to have him push past her, heading straight to his bedroom, a limp form in his arms.

“Who is she?” Linda asks.

“She got hit in the head pretty hard, but she’ll be alright, I think.” Dean gently lays the woman on his bed, sinking next to her, clearly exhausted. “Sam did the stitches on her arm and stomach, but I can’t watch her to make sure she doesn’t pull them out or need to go to a hospital. Can you…”

“Of course. Where’s Sam?”

“In the car. The thing’s trailing us, so I’ve gotta get outta here.” He leans over the woman, and Linda hears a soft and feminine  _Dean_  as he kisses her forehead. “Hey, I’ve got to go. Mrs. Tran’s gonna take good care of you. I’ll be back soon, I promise.” Dean rises, takes Linda’s hand quickly. “Don’t let her fall asleep- At least not for another few hours or so. She took a nasty bump.”

“Of course, Dean. But- Who is she?”

Dean hesitates, looks down, then back up, meeting Linda’s eyes with tears in his own.

“She’s mine. My girlfriend.”

“Oh- I-” Linda starts to say  _didn’t know you had someone_  but that would be a lie. He’s never directly stated it, but a mother’s intuition is rarely wrong. “I’ll take good care of her.”

“Thank you,” says Dean, and with one more quick glance at the woman on the bed, he rushes out.

Linda sighs. She forgot to ask for a name.

Whatever her name is, the woman in Dean’s bed is pretty- Very pretty. Linda sits next to her and lets instinct guide her, running gentle hands over the bruise on the woman’s temple, smoothing back soft hair.

“Dean finally brought his girl here, huh?”

Kevin’s voice is preceded by the cold chill at her back that Linda has come to associate with her son.

“I don’t think he had much choice,” Linda replies. “You knew he had someone?”

“He’s pretty obvious about it. She’s a hunter too, though, or something like it, I think.”

“Do you know her name?”   
Kevin shakes his head. “He calls her 'sweetheart’ sometimes.”

Linda sighs, but decides Sweetheart will be good enough for now. The woman stirs, a soft groan escaping her lips, and Linda’s attention is immediately recaptured.

“Hey,” she says softly. “Don’t move too much, Sweetheart.”

“Fuckin’ werewolf.”

“Oh yeah,” says Kevin. “She’s definitely Dean’s girlfriend.”

“Shut up, Kevin,” hisses Linda. “How’re you feeling?”

“Bad. Hurts.” She groans again, a few stray tears running down her cheek. “Tired.”

“Stay with me, Sweetheart,” Linda pleads, taking a slim hand into her own. “Talk to me about something.”

“Is- Is Dean okay? Did he- Is he-” She tries to sit, letting out a gasp of pain and dropping limply back to the pillows, clutching her head with both hands.

Linda clucks sympathetically. “Don’t try to move just yet. Kevin, keep her awake; I’m going to get her some Tylenol.”

“Dean,” the woman says again, her voice a whimpered plea this time. “Is he okay?”

“He’s fine,” Linda says gently, squeezing her shoulder reassuringly. “He brought you here, and I’m going to look after you, alright?”

“Alright.” Voice softer yet, more air than sound.

Linda hurries to and back from the bathroom at a record pace, the kind rise and fall of Kevin’s voice, the quiet mmm’s and hmm’s of Sweetheart greeting her as she returns.

“Take these,” Linda says. “I know you’re hurting.”

“No, ma'am,” comes a quiet but firm reply. “I don’t like pain meds.”

Linda frowns. “Sweetheart, I really think-”

“The only thing keeping me awake right now is the pain. You take that away, and no one is coming between me and the fuckin’ sandman.” A wince. “I’m sorry- I just- Please. No meds.”

“Dean told me to take care of you,” Linda implores, her maternal instinct unwilling to let the woman suffer. “What can I do for you?”

She hesitates, hisses through her teeth as she shakes her head. “I’m alright. Just need to stay awake.”

Linda’s frown deepens, and she rises from the bed, looking at Kevin significantly.

“Want to play Word Association?” Kevin asks.

A soft chuckle. “Unfair advantage.”

So instead, Linda hears Kevin lower his voice and begin a detailed retelling of one of his many engineering projects. She steps outside and calls Dean.

He answers without preamble. “Is she alright?” he grits out, voice tight with worry.

“She’s awake, she’s talking to Kevin,” Linda reassures kindly. “Listen, I tried to get her to take some Tylenol, her head has to be-”

“She doesn’t take pain meds unless she’s really fucked up.”

“And this doesn’t count?”

“All things considered? No.” Dean sighs. “Just keep her awake for a few hours and then she can sleep through a lot of it.”

“But none of this helps her  _now_ ,” Linda insists. “There has to be  _something_ she’ll let me do for her.”

Dean hesitates, the way he always does when he debates betraying confidences versus doing the right thing for someone, and Linda isn’t above using that knowledge to her advantage.

“She obviously trusts you Dean, and it’s not like you’re using anything against her- I want to help her for Chrissakes. Please.”

“Tea,” Dean says softly. “She likes the same kind of tea you do- That Lady Grey stuff. With peppermint. And um, she, uh-” He clears his throat and says in a rush, “She likes it when you sing to her. Anything by Bad Company or Springsteen.”

“You’re kidding.” Honestly, Linda can’t hold in her surprise.

Dean’s voice roughens. “Hey, she doesn’t take pills, she has to do something-”

“I’m sorry. I just- Nevermind. Thanks. I’ll call you if I need anything else.”

“Tell her I’ll be home soon.”

The call ends, and Linda heads straight for the kitchen, humming Born in The USA, trying to recall all the lyrics.

Then, time passes in Springsteen songs and two cups of tea that Sweetheart drinks in slow, hesitant sips, Linda’s cool palm supporting the injured woman’s neck. Finally, enough hours pass that Linda switches from singing to soft humming and lets the woman drift off to sleep, though she doesn’t rest for long. She startles awake, a cry on her lips, but Linda is there to press her gently back into the mattress.

“Shh…” Linda whispers. “You were just dreaming. Go back to sleep.”

“Think I’m good for awhile, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.”

Silence falls between the two, and absentmindedly, Linda strokes the woman’s hair, threading her fingers through the soft strands, humming The River as she does. This, she knows, from when Kevin was alive and would have nightmares of not making it into his safety schools- Back when nightmares weren’t scary at all, not compared to the life she leads now. Still, there is something soothing about this, the simple act of caring for another, that soothes Linda and her mother’s heart. There isn’t much she can do for Kevin now.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Sure I do, Sweetheart. I’m a mom,” Linda explains. “It’s what we do.”

“Dean talks about you. Apparently, I have kitchen competition.” The voice is quiet, laced with pain and fatigue, but also rich with affection and amusement.

“I’m fond of him as well.”

“He needs that. I’m glad he has it in you.” A pause, a hesitation. “I’m sorry about your son. But it wasn’t Dean’s fault.”

“Believe it or not, I don’t blame him,” Linda says, omitting the  _anymore_  from her reply. After living here with the Winchesters, seeing their remorse for Kevin’s death, she didn’t care about blame at this point and even if she had, she couldn’t fault them. They had done their best to protect her boy.

“I told him no one bakes pie for someone they think killed their kid. But he blames himself.” She lets out a soft sigh, and Linda artfully changes the subject.

“Are you sure you don’t want some Tylenol?”

“I’m sure,” she replies softly. “Dean hasn’t told you much about me?”

“I didn’t know you existed until today.”

Sweetheart lets out a soft chuckle. “We try to keep our relationship under the radar- It’s safer for both of us like this.”

“Because you’re hunters.”

“Mmmhmm.” She lets out a sigh. “I don’t have parents. They were pill addicts, and I ended up in foster care at ten- You know how puppies are more likely to be adopted than older dogs? It’s the same with kids. Everyone wants a baby or a cute little toddler.”

“Oh, I-”

“It was a long time ago.”

Linda doesn’t have a response to that, other than to take Sweetheart’s hand in her free one and give it a gentle squeeze. In return, she receives a sad smile that is followed by a wince.

“Can I get you anything?”

“Not really- Just um- You have a nice singing voice, Mrs. Tran,” she says, almost shyly.

Linda takes the hint and begins The River once more.

“ _I come from down in the valley, where Mister when you’re young…They bring you up to do…Like your daddy done…_ ”

Her mind drifts as Sweetheart drifts in and out of sleep, as Kevin drifts in and out of sight. Staying here, she muses, was inevitable. There is no place left for her, but here- With her ghost child and her adopted ones.

“Mrs. Tran? Could you get me some more tea?”

“Sure, Sweetheart,” says Linda, rising to her feet. “But call me Momma, alright?”

Because family doesn’t end with blood- And Momma Tran will stand with her children until breath and blood run out of her, and after.


End file.
